Health risks linked to alcohol, the ban on red dyes and the launch of commercial spaces

A mixed bag for private spaceflight, a new spider species and the health risks of alcohol

By Rachel Feltman, Madison Goldberg & Fonda Mwangi

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Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, dear listeners! For Scientific AmericanIt is Science quicklyMy name is Rachel Feltman. Let’s start the week by catching up on some science news you may have missed.

Last Tuesday, a committee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a new draft report on alcohol. Review of existing data just one drink per day is linked to an increased risk of liver cirrhosis, oral cancer, and esophageal cancer. The committee also found that alcohol consumption was associated with a higher risk of death from seven types of cancer. And this isn’t the first time the health effects of alcohol have made headlines in 2025: earlier this month, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy argued that alcoholic beverages should come with cancer warning labels.

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The report also found counterintuitive links: People who drank one drink a day had a lower risk of ischemic stroke than people who didn’t drink, and women who drank one, two or three glasses per day had a lower risk of diabetes. But these apparent advantages are inconsistent. The lower risk of ischemic stroke, for example, may disappear if people even occasionally drink four or five servings in one sitting. And women who consumed two alcoholic drinks a day may have had a lower overall risk of diabetes, but they also had a significantly higher risk of ischemic stroke and liver disease.

So the details may seem a little confusing, but the takeaway is pretty simple: You definitely shouldn’t start drinking to improve your health or use the purported benefits you’ve heard to justify your drinking. The position of the World Health Organization is that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for your health. Of course, we all do a lot of things that aren’t good for us per se. But judging from this new report, we should try to be aware of alcohol’s place in our overall lifestyle. There will undoubtedly be headlines in the future saying that, for example, red wine is good for x, Yes Or zbut these headlines never mean that you should drink more alcohol than you currently do.

Meanwhile, last Wednesday the US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in foods, beverages and ingested medications. The dye, made from petroleum, was rejected for use in cosmetics and topical medications in 1990 after laboratory tests on rodents showed it could have carcinogenic effects in high doses. Food manufacturers will have until January 2027 to reformulate their products without Red No. 3 dye, and companies that make ingested medications will have until January 2028.

Advocacy groups have filed a petition with the FDA to ban red dye No. 3 in 2022, and the agency has concluded that the dye violates the so-called Delaney Clause, a part of the Food Act , drugs and cosmetics that prevents the FDA from allowing any additive that could cause cancer in humans or other animals. But it should be noted that, according to report of Statistical newsthe mechanism by which the dye causes cancer in male rats is not actually applicable to humans.

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Feltman: In other public health news, a team of more than 50 experts publishing in the Lancet Diabetes and endocrinology newspaper argued last week that the current diagnosis of “obesity” was wrong. The use of body mass index, or BMI, as a determinant of health has been up in the air for some time, and these researchers suggest focusing on more accurate measurements of excess body fat. They also suggest that people who meet the definition of obesity but do not have any of the conditions that can sometimes be associated with higher weight, such as diabetes or heart disease, be placed in a separate category from people who are already struggling with this problem. these health problems. Researchers say this will help doctors provide more nuanced care, although it’s not really clear how it would solve the current problem of weight stigma in medicine. If you would like to learn more about the impact of size bias on healthcare, watch our November 8 episode on the subject.

And now, some space. Last Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched with two new lunar landers in tow. The two landers were created by two different private companies and were launched into slightly different orbits.

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Feltman: One of the SUV-sized landers comes from Japanese startup ispace. The other comes from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace. Nicknamed the Blue Ghost lunar lander, it carries payloads for 10 different NASA experiments. Blue Ghost is expected to reach the lunar surface in about 45 days.

This wasn’t the only commercial space victory last week. On Thursday morning, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket launched for the very first time. The rocket’s upper stage entered orbitwhich made the launch a technical success. But Blue Origin didn’t quite succeed in getting extra credits: They tried, unsuccessfully, to land the rocket’s reusable booster on a waiting ship in the Atlantic. But given that New Glenn was originally supposed to take off in 2020, this SpaceX competitor is probably happy to take home the victory.

Coming back to SpaceX, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for them last week either. On Thursday afternoon, the company conducted the seventh test launch of its Starship vehicle. The second stage of the megarocket, which carried a fake satellite test payload, exploded a few minutes after takeoff. According to a social media post from SpaceX founder Elon Musk, some sort of leak is likely the cause, and the company plans to do another launch next month.

We’ll end with something pretty wild. Have you ever thought about spiders in Australia and thought, “No, they’re not big enough or venomous enough for me”? Well, the scientists have you covered.

Last Monday, researchers announced the discovery of a new species of funnel-web spider. It is a close relative of the Sydney funnel web spider, known for its painful bites that can cause serious illness and even death. This new species, which scientists have nicknamed “Big Boy,” can grow – you guessed it –almost twice as long as other funnel-web spiders and it also has larger fangs and venom glands. So have fun, Australia!

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Feltman: That’s it for this week’s news roundup. We will be back with another episode on Wednesday.

Science quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more recent and in-depth scientific news.

For Scientific AmericanThis is Rachel Feltman. Have a good week!